Several years ago, one of our Technology Coaches at the time was helping organize one of our first collaborations (video conference) with another school through an iSight camera, a microphone, and a video projector all attached to her laptop in a Senior KIndergarten classroom. The school was just down the street, and we both used iChat on our Macs.
We were discussing what our students had learned about Ireland, and I really don't remember what the other school was sharing. We decided we should hook up to ethernet rather than use the wireless network to make a better connection. We rolled a mobile interactive whiteboard in to use only as a projection screen. Cables and cords were everywhere, but it was an incredible first experience and the students (and the teachers) thought it was magical.
But what I will remember most about that experience is what the Tech Coach said to me as we rolled everything out that we had just rolled in and disconnected everything that we had diligently connected. She said, "Technology! It takes a village." I loved that. I laughed because she was so right. What we did was new to us, and it did take so many people and so much equipment to make it happen. I still recall her saying that and use it on occasion when something is a little more laborious than I had hoped while integrating technology.
It's even more special to me, because that Tech Coach became ill later and passed away at a young age. So I think of her fondly often and use her famous line at least twice a school year.
And so what if integrating technology takes a village. The inhabitants of our village share and collaborate and help each other to continue to grow and learn. I've been in educational technology for almost 20 years, and the early naysayers worried that technology would isolate the student. As we know, that can't be further from the truth. Technology connects us in ways that we never could have imagined. It connects us to the global village.
This school year, I hope to snap a few pictures of our villagers helping one another - specifically in integrating technology into the classrooms. Hopefully we can all take a little snippet away here and there!
Monday, August 23, 2010
Today we distributed laptops to our 5th and 6th grade students. This is the 10th year of distributing laptops to our 6th graders but the first year for the 5th graders. We have been a 1 to 1 laptop school for awhile. But until today, only the 6th graders brought them to and from school. We opened this up to our 5th graders this year.
We refresh laptops every 3 years. This happened to be the year for new laptops. Our students received the latest white MacBooks from Apple. They were so new, so clean, so white, and so sleek. I've never seen so many 5th and 6th grade boys ooohhh and aahhh so much.
One thing I want to share today concerns our Internet filtering software. Since these are young boys in an elementary school, we do feel that it is important that we filter the Internet. Until this year, our Internet filter wouldn't work outside the school building. We let the parents know that the filter would not work away from school and that we would support them and help them if they wanted to purchase and install a filter that would work at home. Few, if any, ever chose to do this.
With the number of wireless networks in the home and other locations, we felt that we were doing a disservice in not providing this for our students when taking the laptops off campus. This year, we chose Lightspeed Systems, and we are very pleased with the outcome. While we all know that no Internet filtering system can ever block all objectionable sites, the filter works beautifully at school and picks up any wireless network and continues to filter as it did while the students were on campus.
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